It was the old, old story; it had been thus as far back as Hal could remember. It seemed one of the mysteries of nature, how she could have brought two such different temperaments out of the same parentage. Edward was practical and positive; he knew what he wanted in the world, and he knew how to get it; he was never troubled with doubts, nor with self-questioning, nor with any other superfluous emotions; he could not understand people who allowed that sort of waste in their mental processes. He could not understand people who got “swept into things.” In the beginning, he had had with Hal the prestige of the elder brother. He was handsome as a young Greek god, he was strong and masterful; whether he was flying over the ice with sure, strong strokes, or cutting the water with his glistening shoulders, or bringing down a partridge with the certainty and swiftness of a lightning stroke, Edward was the incarnation of Success. When he said that one’s ideas were “rot,” when he spoke with contempt of “mollycoddles”--then indeed one suffered in soul, and had to go back to Shelley and Ruskin to renew one’s courage. The questioning of life had begun very early with Hal; there seemed to be something in his nature which forced him to go to the roots of things; and much as he looked up to his wonderful brother, he had been made to realise that there were sides of life to which this brother was blind. To begin with, there were religious doubts; the distresses of mind which plague a young man when first it dawns upon him that the faith he has been brought up in is a higher kind of fairy-tale. Edward had never asked such questions, apparently. He went to church, because it was the thing to do; more especially because it was pleasing to the young lady he wished to marry to have him put on stately clothes, and escort her to a beautiful place of music and flowers and perfumes, where she would meet her friends, also in stately clothes. How abnormal it seemed to Edward that a young man should give up this pleasant custom, merely because he could not be sure that Jonah had swallowed a whale! But it was when Hal’s doubts attacked his brother’s week-day religion--the religion of the profit-system--that the controversy between them had become deadly. At first Hal had known nothing about practical affairs, and it had been Edward’s duty to answer his questions. The prosperity of the country had been built up by strong men; and these men had enemies--evil-minded persons, animated by jealousy and other base passions, seeking to tear down the mighty structure. At first this devil-theory had satisfied the boy; but later on, as he had come to read and observe, he had been plagued by doubts. In the end, listening to his brother’s conversation, and reading the writings of so-called “muck-rakers,” the realisation was forced upon him that there were two types of mind in the controversy--those who thought of profits, and those who thought of human beings.